


Two Sides

by mithrel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blanket Permission, Claiming, Established Relationship, M/M, Marking, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-21
Updated: 2010-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tricksters are bugging the Winchesters.  They want Gabriel to stop them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Sides

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Krystalicekitsu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystalicekitsu/gifts).



“ _SAM!!!”_ ”

Sam sticks his head out of the bathroom at his brother’s bellow. “What?” Dean sounds like he’s going to bust something.

“Your boyfriend’s relatives have been screwing with my car!”

Sam’s eyes widen. They’d had to deal with the occasional prank over the past few months (never from Gabriel, although Dean had blamed him for the first few) but none of them ever did anything to the Impala. “What’d they do?”

“They stuck the radio on a Christian station! And I can’t turn it off!”

Sam represses his smile, knowing if Dean thinks he thinks it's funny he may well be left alone at the motel for however long it takes Dean to cool off. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

“Well, do _something!_ You’re the one who’s dating that damned Trickster!”

“You called?”

Sam looks over. Gabriel’s lounging in the doorway, eating a caramel apple.

Dean storms over to him. “Fix my car right now, goddammit!”

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. “And what exactly is wrong with your car?”

For answer, Dean stalks out of the room. Sam and Gabriel follow him. He goes out to the parking lot, opens the driver-side door and turns the key.

“ _I have seen the healing hand of God, reaching out and mending broken hearts…_ ”

Sam thinks Gabriel’s going to hurt himself laughing. When Dean looks like he’s going to go for the holy oil, he finally calms down. “Sounds…good to me,” he wheezes.

“Fix it now, goddamn you!”

Gabriel chuckles again and snaps his fingers. The radio turns off, and when Dean turns it on again it’s back on a classic rock station.

“Seriously, Gabriel, this has to stop,” Sam puts in. “So far nothing too serious has happened, but you know better than anyone that Tricksters’ tricks end up bloody more often than not.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll talk to them,” Gabriel sighs.

***

As it happens, there’s going to be a gathering of most of the Tricksters the next week. And, because Tricksters like a party as much or more than anyone else, they’re meeting in Vegas.

Gabriel materializes at the Bellagio and is greeted by cold silence.

Anansi stares down his nose at him. “Loki. You were not invited.”

“Since when has that stopped any of us?”

“What do you want?” Coyote asks tiredly.

“I want to know which of you has been messing with the Winchesters!”

“What business is it of yours?” Raven demands.

Gabriel bristles. “Sam Winchester is _mine!_ He and his entire family are under my protection!”

“You haven’t marked him,” Raven scoffs. “Until you make a claim, any of us can do with him as we wish.”

Gabriel winces. It’s true. He hadn’t wanted to take that step; marking Sam would bind him to him permanently. With a scowl, he vanishes.

***

When Gabriel shows up at the Winchesters motel-of-the-week Dean glowers at him. “So did you talk to them?”

“Keep your shirt on, Winchester. I’ll get to it.” His eyes light on Sam. “I need to talk to you.”

“Oh for…I’m going out!” Dean says, grabbing his keys off the table.

Gabriel smirks. Dean didn’t want to think about his relationship with Sam, and headed for the hills at any insinuation that Gabriel was going to start something.

Which in this case is all to the good, since it isn’t likely _Sam_ will accept the idea of bearing his mark. If Gabriel suggests it while Dean’s in the room, they’ll be cleaning Winchester off the walls. Or possibly archangel, he isn’t sure.

“So I talked to the Tricksters,” he begins.

“I thought you said–”

“I know, I know. But they won’t leave you alone unless…”

“Unless what?”

Gabriel blows out a breath. “Sam, how serious are you about me?”

Sam’s eyes widen at the sudden question. “Uh…pretty serious, I guess. Why?”

“The only way the Tricksters will leave you and Dean alone is if you’ve been claimed.”

At that Sam’s eyes narrow down to almost nothing. “Claimed how?”

“If you bear my mark they’ll leave you and your family alone.”

“Why didn’t you mention it before?”

Gabriel sighs. Even when he’d been in full-blown pagan god mode he’d never marked anyone. He’d accepted sacrifices, sure, and taken consorts, but he’d never claimed anybody as his. “Well, for one thing it’s a big step. If I mark you, you’ll be mine forever.”

“This ‘mark.’ What is it exactly?”

Gabriel sucks his lips between his teeth, thinking. “It’s…a kind of contract, I guess you could say. It means I agree to protect you–”

“You do that already.”

Gabriel nods. “But like I said, if I do this, _everyone_ will know. Not just the gods coming after you.”

“You mean Lucifer.”

“Uh-huh.”

“If you mark me, can he still use me as his vessel?”

“Possibly. I don’t know. I am an archangel too, so maybe not. Either way he’ll be _pissed._ ”

“Which is another reason you didn’t want to do it.”

“I don’t want to take sides yet. I’ll help you with the small stuff, but…” If he puts his mark on Sam, he’ll have to protect him from anyone trying to harm him, including Lucifer.

Sam nods. “We’ll deal with the pranks.”

Gabriel blinks. “What?”

“Look, I don’t want Lucifer coming after you. We can deal with–”

“But I want to,” Gabriel whispers, surprising himself. It’s true, he realizes. Despite what he’d just told Sam, he’d convinced himself he was going to take the Winchesters’ side against Heaven and Hell. If he made himself a target Lucifer might leave Sam alone for awhile.

He hadn’t wanted to mention the mark to Sam because he didn’t want him to feel pressured into anything. Poor kid has enough of that in his life already. A mark is serious shit, and just because Gabriel wants it doesn’t mean Sam will.

“This mark…would it give you control over me?”

“No. I’d always know where you were, and you could call on me if you needed me, but I couldn’t control you.”

“But Lucifer–“

“Don’t worry about him. Do you want to or not? This is big, Sam, there’s no going back. It’s your choice.” This is no longer about pranks, or even about Lucifer. It’s about them.

Sam swallows, then nods. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

Gabriel blinks rapidly a few times, and clears his throat. “OK. I’ll need some stuff.”

***

Gabriel squats over the brazier, feeding ash twigs into it and chanting. Sam’s kneeling on the other side, shirtless.

When all the twigs have been burned he waits for the ashes to cool.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks one last time.

Sam nods. “I’m sure.”

Gabriel takes a stick, dips it in a pot of water and coats it in ash. Sam extends his left wrist, and he writes runes around it: _Lögr_ , _Óss,_ _Kaun,_ _Isa._ He does the same with Sam’s right wrist. Then he sets the stick aside, grips Sam’s wrists in his hands and lets his power flow into the words. Not his Grace–he’d gained enough power in the old days that he could still call upon it now. Sam grits his teeth as the marks burn into his wrists, but doesn’t make a sound.

When he pulls away, Sam runs his fingers over the marks. “So this binds me to you?”

Gabriel nods. “You’re stuck with me forever, kiddo.”

Sam laughs weakly, then goes back to tracing the marks.

“Sam? What’s wrong?” If he’s regretting it…

“It’s just…this isn’t _you._ It’s Loki.”

“I was Loki for a long time, Sam.”

He nods unhappily. “Yeah I know. But it’s not who you really are.”

“You want me to mark you as an angel too, is that it?”

Sam looks at the floor, but mumbles, “Yeah.”

“Where?”

Sam’s eyes snap up. “Uh…I dunno. Somewhere not easily visible. Dean’s gonna have enough questions about these.” He shakes his wrists.

“How about your hip?”

Sam thinks about it and nods. “OK.”

Sam gets up and takes his jeans and boxers off. Gabriel has to force himself to keep his mind on what he’s doing.

Gabriel gets up too and puts his arm around Sam’s waist to steady him. He reaches out and lays a hand over Sam’s left hip, takes a deep breath and lets his Grace flow through it.

Sam stiffens against him and lets out a small noise. A moment later Gabriel pulls away.

Sam shifts slightly and hisses as the burned handprint pulls.

“Yeah, it’ll be tender for a few hours, but after that you probably won’t even notice it.”

“I’ll notice it,” Sam says firmly, and Gabriel smiles.


End file.
